In today's blog post, I'd like to talk about timing and rhythm within comics. What makes good pacing for reading and keeps the reader from speeding through or losing interest when reading their comics? How do comic artists even make rhythm and timing when they're just drawing pictures?

    Well, through panel length, transitions, and layout, of course!

    How this is utilized also varies from the form of the comic; manga, web comics, comics, and graphic novels all have different forms and so the way these panels are sometimes used is vastly different. However, it's all the same base formula.

    In this past week for class, I dissected Schultz' Peanuts comic. The ones where Lucy yoinks the football from Charlie Brown juuust before he kicks it. These comics I feel are good examples of timing and rhythm. 

    Let's take a look at one of these comic strips

    With every one of these annual football comic strips, Schultz keeps a rhythm through the same format for it: Lucy calls Charlie Brown over, Charlie Brown says that Lucy must think he's stupid, she talks him into trying to kick the football, he goes for it, misses it, then she states a loophole from her previous deal with Charlie Brown.

    This is just how the comic rhythm is formed through words and transitions between the images in the panels. With the use of keep the same format of speech as well as actions, the rhythm is continuous and expected of viewers every year.

    But let's look deeper into it, shall we?

    I mentioned panel length and layout, too, didn't I? There's also a bit of a "hidden BOSS" that ties into layout as another aspect for timing and rhythm, too. It's a big one I feel helps tie in all of the other parts, but we'll get into that in a minute.

    If we look at the panels above, they each have varying sizes, yes? The first one is wide while the other one is about a third that size. And then the next three are about the same size while the last one on the second row is slightly bigger than the first three.

    Why is that?

    Well, to keep the pacing!

    Your eye is being forced by Schultz to scan all the way across the panel as you absorb everything within the space. The smaller the panel, the less there is to see, which means you read it faster. The larger the panel, the more there is to see, which means you read it slower.

    Through this method, the comedic impact from certain parts or the philosophical impacts in other parts will hit the viewer harder as they have a longer space to digest such information. It also gives the story timing in a "literal" sense. If Charlie Brown and Lucy were consistently side-by-side, there would be no sense of space and distance between the two, so some of the timing it has for Charlie to run across the grass, building up speed, going to kick the football, and giving Lucy enough time to yank that ball away -- it would be nonexistent. It wouldn't be possible to happen and nothing would make sense.

    Only through lengthening panels and making that sense of space and time can we have such scenes.

    Now, onto layout and our hidden BOSS. The typical layout can be easily replayed through the chain of events of how these comics work. It's really just a formulaic layout that Schultz implements every time. It starts with Lucy calling Charlie Brown over as she holds the football and ends with Charlie Brown laying dizzily on his back as she delivers the devastating punchline.

    But the key point to this layout that gives that rhythm and timing an extra oomph is where Schultz places the characters. They say in art the more important the figure the more central it's placed. In the case of comics, it usually means that panel will end up read quicker.

    If we look at the same comic as I posted earlier, we can see the way Schultz has placed these characters. For some of the panels, like the third panel in the second row, we have Lucy dead center of the panel. With this, we breeze right through this one-beat moment.

    But can we say the same to the two previous ones? We breeze through them too; they have short panel lengths but two characters that aren't centered. How can this be?

    Well, very easily, actually.

    They're evenly spaced within the panel, dividing the box into thirds!

    They seem as if they're not evenly centered, but in this case they are as the box is now divided to fit these two as centered as possible.

    It's when they have a more extreme space between them that they are no longer centered and the pacing is now lengthened to more than one beat. This is very much visible with the final panel on the second row. Lucy and Charlie Brown are right on the edges of the panel, showing that there is at least one beat between them and they each also represent one beat themselves, thus giving the panel three beats.

    With the extreme space between them, as we read Lucy's text, we are now given "space" to digest these things before we hit Charlie Brown and move onto the next panel.

    These same rules can apply to horizontal lines or diagonal lines. Within the last three panels, we get the sense of speed of Charlie Brown busting his back onto the ground by the fact that his line intersects with Lucy's. Then there's the extreme distance Charlie Brown has from the top of the panel in the immediate right box which gives us the space to "feel" the painful impact Charlie Brown has when he collides with the earth. Then we have the quickish moment where Lucy delivers the punchline.

    This hidden BOSS helps to tie together layout, panel length, and transitions. The layout of the characters controls the panel length and the transitions helps shows the interactions and actions of the characters as they talk.

    Utilizing all of these within his comic, Schultz manages to make good rhythm and timing. The moments that need to happen fast are fast and the moments that should be drawn out are drawn out. And they're done well and within reasonable means.